The Arctic Prairies | Page 3

bound like ourselves for the far north. The officer in charge
turned out to be an old friend from Toronto, Major A. M. Jarvis. I also
met John Schott, the gigantic half-breed, who went to the Barren
Grounds with Caspar Whitney in 1895. He seemed to have great
respect for Whitney as a tramper, and talked much of the trip, evidently
having forgotten his own shortcomings of the time. While I sketched
his portrait, he regaled me with memories of his early days on Red
River, where he was born in 1841. 1 did not fail to make what notes I
could of those now historic times. His accounts of the Antelope on
White Horse Plain, in 1855, and Buffalo about the site of Carberry,
Manitoba, in 1852, were new and valuable light on the ancient ranges
of these passing creatures.
All travellers who had preceded me into the Barren Grounds had relied
on the abundant game, and in consequence suffered dreadful hardships;
in some cases even starved to death. I proposed to rely on no game, but
to take plenty of groceries, the best I could buy in Winnipeg, which
means the best in the world; and, as will be seen later, the game,
because I was not relying on it, walked into camp every day.
But one canoe could not carry all these provisions, so most of it I
shipped on the Hudson's Bay Company scows, taking with us, in the
canoe, food for not more than a week, which with camp outfit was just
enough for ballast.
Of course I was in close touch with the Hudson's Bay people. Although
nominally that great trading company parted with its autocratic power
and exclusive franchise in 1870, it is still the sovereign of the north.
And here let me correct an error that is sometimes found even in
respectable print--the Company has at all times been ready to assist
scientists to the utmost of its very ample power. Although jealous of its
trading rights, every one is free to enter the territory without taking
count of the Company, but there has not yet been a successful scientific
expedition into the region without its active co-operation.
The Hudson's Bay Company has always been the guardian angel of the
north.
I suppose that there never yet was another purely commercial concern
that so fully realized the moral obligations of its great power, or that
has so uniformly done its best for the people it ruled.
At all times it has stood for peace, and one hears over and over again

that such and such tribes were deadly enemies, but the Company
insisted on their smoking the peace pipe. The Sioux and Ojibway,
Black-Foot and Assiniboine., Dog-Rib and Copper-Knife, Beaver and
Chipewyan, all offer historic illustrations in point, and many others
could be found for the list.
The name Peace River itself is the monument of a successful effort on
the part of the Company to bring about a better understanding between
the Crees and the Beavers.
Besides human foes, the Company has saved the Indian from famine
and plague. Many a hunger-stricken tribe owes its continued existence
to the fatherly care of the Company, not simply general and
indiscriminate, but minute and personal, carried into the details of their
lives. For instance, when bots so pestered the Caribou of one region as
to render their hides useless to the natives, the Company brought in
hides from a district where they still were good.
The Chipewyans were each spring the victims of snow-blindness until
the Company brought and succeeded in popularizing their present ugly
but effectual and universal peaked hats. When their train-dogs were
running down in physique, the Company brought in a strain of pure
Huskies or Eskimo. When the Albany River Indians were starving and
unable to hunt, the Company gave the order for 5,000 lodge poles.
Then, not knowing how else to turn them to account, commissioned the
Indians to work them into a picket garden-fence. At all times the native
found a father in the Company, and it was the worst thing that ever
happened the region when the irresponsible free-traders with their
demoralizing methods were allowed to enter and traffic where or how
they pleased.


CHAPTER II
DOWN THE NOISY RIVER WITH THE VOYAGEURS

At Athabaska Landing, on May 18, 1907, 10.15 A. M., we boarded the

superb Peterborough canoe that I had christened the Ann Seton. The
Athabaska River was a-flood and clear of ice; 13 scows of freight, with
60 half-breeds and Indians to man them, left at the same time, and in
spite of a strong headwind we drifted northward fully 31 miles an hour.
The leading scow, where I spent some time, was in charge of John
MacDonald himself, and his passengers